I recommend following the FCS. It's much more true to the ideal of student athletics, with far less corruption, a true playoff system, yet still delivers a high quality level of play.

If you're in Houston (according to your profile), Houston Baptist is starting a team this year.

I'm beginning to think it's time the accreditation agencies step in and tell the universities to divest themselves of their athletic departments.

It was a nice idea a century ago, but American colleges are the only place left in the world where you see big-time athletics and effectively bottleneck professional players through the schools. It might be time for someone with the power to do so force the separation of school and sport.

JJRRutgers:My dream for the Owl band? March on the field with a giant sharpie and spell out Manziel's name on the field using band field, using the Sharpie to "sign" it. Song suggestions while this is happening?

JJRRutgers:My dream for the Owl band? March on the field with a giant sharpie and spell out Manziel's name on the field using band field, using the Sharpie to "sign" it. Song suggestions while this is happening?

meh . The NCAA still needs and enema to get all the shiat out of it. what harm does it cause to let college athletes get paid for autographs, I would want them to notify the NCAA that they did so but thats it.

The NCAA would prefer that everyone- especially your 'Canes- would all forget about that situation, and especially how much they botched it.

Seriously, that's the institutional definition of "stepping on your genitals with golf shoes".

//Thanks for Coker, BTW.

As soon as they come out and say it, great. Or hit us with our two years of scholarship reductions and fine and we'll move on. (Of course, f*ck them anyway, but still. What the hell do they do over there all day? 64 teams, 4 divisions, let's cut and run.)

/Oh, good luck with him, hope he works out. He seems like a great guy, and not half-bad as a coach, just not...yeah, it was time to let him go. Again, all the best though.

NCAA: Did you take money for signing those autographs? Now remember, if you answer 'yes' we are going to have to revoke your eligibility and you will not be allowed to play college football ever again.

(lawyer whispers in Manziel's ear)

Manziel: I did not accept any money.

NCAA: Alright. We're good here. Of course, it's gonna have to look like we are really interrogating you. How would you like to play us in Madden 25 for the next 6 hours? We got an advance copy right here.

NCAA: Did you take money for signing those autographs? Now remember, if you answer 'yes' we are going to have to revoke your eligibility and you will not be allowed to play college football ever again.

(lawyer whispers in Manziel's ear)

Manziel: I did not accept any money.

NCAA: Alright. We're good here. Of course, it's gonna have to look like we are really interrogating you. How would you like to play us in Madden 25 for the next 6 hours? We got an advance copy right here.

Jen Engel is farking terrible. Absolutely terrible. Far and away the worst sports writer I've ever read. When she wrote for the Star T I would read her column till I hit the point where she wrote something pants on head retarded. I rarely made it a 1/4 of the way into anything she wrote

i only follow my alma mater regular season and havent cared about the NCAA in 10 years. we (UK) even went to 4 straight bowl games that were 100% meaningless in an era of making sure every team got a goddam ribbon as long as it sold stadium seats and advertising.

NCAA: Did you take money for signing those autographs? Now remember, if you answer 'yes' we are going to have to revoke your eligibility and you will not be allowed to play college football ever again.

(lawyer whispers in Manziel's ear)

Manziel: I did not accept any money.

NCAA: Alright. We're good here. Of course, it's gonna have to look like we are really interrogating you. How would you like to play us in Madden 25 for the next 6 hours? We got an advance copy right here.

It would be cool if Manziel had decided as a freshman in high school that the NCAA was corrupt as shiat and recorded a video detailing his plan to become a superstar football player, then purposely do something illegal and get a slap on the wrist for being white. All because the NCAA had screwed over his favorite player, "whoever", for breaking the rules while having the gall to be black. Everything he's done up until now has all been part of the plan, and at the end of the season he makes the video public(because why disrupt the season any more than it already is) as a giant screw you to the NCAA. Then he goes pro.

I mean, I don't think that was what he was going for, but it sure would have been cool.

Oh oh, and at the end of the video, a 13 year old him says "fark you NCAA. Just. fark. You.", and then right after this video is done at the end of the press conference where he is playing it, current day Johnny Football says "And the sentiment still stands", drops the mic, and walks off stand flipping them the bird.

degenerate-afro:regindyn: degenerate-afro: Let this be a lesson to all student athletes. If you wish to profit off of your name, be white and affluent.do not go for material goods. Cash is the only way to go.

No tattoos. No cars. No clothes or hats or shoes. Straight Cash Homie.

Cam Newton and Johnny Football have set the blueprint for kids in college football to make money.

1. Wait until the year you are going to declare for the NFL.2. Cash out as much as you can without leaving a paper trail or letting on to your college admin.3. If the shiat hits the fan then lawyer up and deny deny deny.4. Walk away from college football, get drafted, and don't look back.

If I was Jadeveon Clowney I would be selling as much merchandise as I could sign to boosters right now for straight cash. By the time the NCAA gets around to investigating, I will already be drafted first overall by Oakland.

legion_of_doo:SubBass49: Step1 - Be WhiteStep2 - Do the wrong thingStep3 - ProfitStep4 - Profit some more

White like Cam Newton & Reggie Bush?

Yeah, I don't think this is a racial thing, or even the NCAA showing deliberate favoritism, it's the NCAA being worried because certain power conferences have gotten so powerful that the NCAA is worried about keeping the reigns on them and is therefore willing to look the other way more than they should.

The NCAA is non-profit and mainly concerned with managing the nuts and bolts of collegiate athletics. It doesn't matter to them at the end of the day if the national champs are A&M, Alabama, Oregon, or Duke.

Granted, being non-profit doesn't mean that NCAA employees aren't concerned with keeping their jobs, and they realize that they'd become much less relevant, and likely have to cut staff and compensation, if the big FBS conferences decided to form their own association free of NCAA oversight. They're already halfway there in football as the BCS series isn't an NCAA run championship.

If Manziel was black the decision would have been the same, it was based on preserving relationships with a big name school more than anything else. It's fair to criticize the NCAA on their lopsided and erratic enforcement of the rules, but blaming it on race is off the mark. The NCAA is being extorted by the SEC, Big 12, Big 10, PAC, and to a lesser degree the ACC. It's certainly upsetting to the vast majority of NCAA institutions to see them giving favorable treatment to the big boys, but at this point the NCAA has let it go on for so long that it's basically self preservation.

Not too likely. You'd have him portrayed in media as a thug if he did HALF the stuff that he's done as a White guy, the public would be turned against him, and he'd probably be done with the season if not his NCAA career.

SubBass49:TuteTibiImperes: If Manziel was black the decision would have been the same

Not too likely. You'd have him portrayed in media as a thug if he did HALF the stuff that he's done as a White guy, the public would be turned against him, and he'd probably be done with the season if not his NCAA career.

/BTW...I'm White.

Has the media been behind him? Maybe I've been reading the wrong sites, but I've seen plenty of bashing on him for being a whiny entitled jerkass.

TuteTibiImperes:SubBass49: TuteTibiImperes: If Manziel was black the decision would have been the same

Not too likely. You'd have him portrayed in media as a thug if he did HALF the stuff that he's done as a White guy, the public would be turned against him, and he'd probably be done with the season if not his NCAA career.

/BTW...I'm White.

Has the media been behind him? Maybe I've been reading the wrong sites, but I've seen plenty of bashing on him for being a whiny entitled jerkass.

No one has been calling him a thug or a gang banger. If he was black, or worse black with high profile tatoos, they would

JJRRutgers:My dream for the Owl band? March on the field with a giant sharpie and spell out Manziel's name on the field using band field, using the Sharpie to "sign" it. Song suggestions while this is happening?

TuteTibiImperes:SubBass49: TuteTibiImperes: If Manziel was black the decision would have been the same

Not too likely. You'd have him portrayed in media as a thug if he did HALF the stuff that he's done as a White guy, the public would be turned against him, and he'd probably be done with the season if not his NCAA career.

/BTW...I'm White.

Has the media been behind him? Maybe I've been reading the wrong sites, but I've seen plenty of bashing on him for being a whiny entitled jerkass.

See, that's because he IS a whiny entitled jerkass. Sadly, a Black athlete would be characterized as a thug for half the stuff Manziel has done, regardless of whether or not he was one.

- He's been charged for disorderly conduct, failure to identify, and possession of a fictitious driver's license after being involved in a fight.

- The fight started when he was with a friend who said racist slurs at someone else and he defended his racist buddy from getting his ass beat.

- He biatched about a parking ticket and wanted to leave the program over it

- He got paid CASH to buy RIMS in exchange for signing his autograph.

So yeah, imagine a Black athlete doing the same...he'd be labeled a thug after step one.

SubBass49:TuteTibiImperes: SubBass49: TuteTibiImperes: If Manziel was black the decision would have been the same

Not too likely. You'd have him portrayed in media as a thug if he did HALF the stuff that he's done as a White guy, the public would be turned against him, and he'd probably be done with the season if not his NCAA career.

/BTW...I'm White.

Has the media been behind him? Maybe I've been reading the wrong sites, but I've seen plenty of bashing on him for being a whiny entitled jerkass.

See, that's because he IS a whiny entitled jerkass. Sadly, a Black athlete would be characterized as a thug for half the stuff Manziel has done, regardless of whether or not he was one.

- He's been charged for disorderly conduct, failure to identify, and possession of a fictitious driver's license after being involved in a fight.

- The fight started when he was with a friend who said racist slurs at someone else and he defended his racist buddy from getting his ass beat.

- He biatched about a parking ticket and wanted to leave the program over it

- He got paid CASH to buy RIMS in exchange for signing his autograph.

So yeah, imagine a Black athlete doing the same...he'd be labeled a thug after step one.

Wow, I didn't realize he'd done all that. Yes, I agree, a black athlete would have been called some mighty nasty things for doing the same.

However, the NCAA doesn't rule based on public opinion. They aren't a government organization, no one votes their leaders in, they just do what they do. My opinion is that feeding the SEC beast and ameliorating the fears of the big conference schools had more to do with the decision than anything else. Perhaps if the public were calling him an out of control thug they might have done more, but that really comes down on our own public race culture more than the NCAA.

I'll admit I think the NCAA gets a bad rap. They do most of what they need to do exceedingly well and with little recognition. Nobody pays attention to the DII women's softball championship, or the Division 1 men's rowing finals, but they still organize and run them, at a loss. Even the true Division 1 Football Championship (FCS) playoffs lose money, and some of that comes from the NCAA. They cover all of college athletics, and do a necessary job that most people never pay attention to. I'll fully admit that I think they've created a monster by not flexing their muscles to ban the offshoot BCS series in its infancy when they could have, and for letting the power conference school wield way more influence than they should be able to, but I also realize they're in a tough position at the moment.